Pablo De Santis - The Paris Enigma

It was the first time I had ever left my country, the first time I had been on a boat. And yet the real voyage had begun the moment I entered the Academy and I left behind my world (my house, my father’s shoe shop). From then on everything was foreign to me. Paris was just a continuation of Craig’s house, and more than once I awoke in the hotel room with the feeling that I had fallen asleep in one of the Academy’s freezing cold rooms.

Following my mentor’s instructions, I took a room at the Nécart Hotel. I knew that was where the other assistants would be staying. While Madame Nécart wrote my name into a thick accounting register, I tried to guess which of the gentlemen smoking in the reception room were my colleagues. They must be the ones who are most discreet, most observant, and capable of collaborating on an investigation without getting in the way. Shadows.

I was accustomed to the large rooms and open spaces of Buenos Aires, so the Parisian salon seemed to belong in a dollhouse. It was one of those rooms that we visit in dreams, where several different places from our waking life converge into a single dream-space: the faux Persian rug, the paintings with mythological motifs, the shaky end table, the fake Chinese desk, everything was incongruent, theatrical. On the stage one must create the impression of life with a motley conglomeration of furniture, saturated with details, but in the real world empty spaces are needed to allow a little breathing room.

I had barely started unpacking when there was a knock at my door. When I opened it I saw a Neapolitan with an exaggerated mustache who brought his heels together with a military click.

“I’m Mario Baldone, assistant to Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.” I offered him my hand, which he shook vigorously.

“I know every single case your detective has solved. I particularly remember the one that began with a nun f loating in the river. She had a letter fastened to her cap with a gold pin.”

“The Case of the Tarot Cards. I had the great honor of assisting Magrelli with that. It was one of his loveliest cases. There was so much symmetry, such balance in those crimes… They were clear, elegant, without so much as one extra drop of blood. The killer was Dr. Benardi, the director of San Giorgio Hospital; every so often he still writes to Magrelli from prison.”

“Would you like to come in?”

“No, I just wanted to invite you to the meeting tonight. A few of us have already arrived.”

“Are we meeting here in the hotel?”

“In the drawing room, at seven.”

I continued to unpack with the feeling that I was taking apart my old life, and that those elements-the brand-new clothes my mother had insisted I buy, Craig’s cane, my notebook, with every page blank-were the pieces with which I would construct a new reality.

I lay down for a nap but because of my exhaustion from the trip-I was never able to sleep a whole night through on board the ship-I didn’t wake up until seven thirty. I went downstairs with my head still cloudy from sleep. Seven of the assistants were gathered in the drawing room. Baldone didn’t seem at all disturbed by my lateness and introduced me to everyone. The first was Fritz Linker, assistant to Tobias Hatter, the detective from Berlin, who offered me an enormous soft hand: he was a dull-looking giant and his lederhosen only accentuated the impression of stupidity coming from his watery eyes. However, I knew very well that his obvious questions, his insistence on discussing the weather, and his idiotic jokes (which drove Hatter crazy) were merely a charade.

Benito, the only black assistant, worked for Zagala, the Portuguese detective, famous for solving mysteries on the high seas. His most celebrated case was the disappearance of the entire crew of the Colossus . The case had dominated newspapers for months. Benito’s skill with locks was renowned and it was said that he used his talents not only in search of the truth but also to earn some extra money, since Zagala had a reputation for being cheap.

Seated in one of the four green armchairs, without talking to anyone, was an Indian who seemed to be concentrating intensely on the spiderweb stretching over one corner of the room. It was Tamayak, whose ancestors were Sioux, the assistant to Jack Novarius, an American who, in his youth, had worked for the Pinkerton Agency. Later he founded his own office. Tamayak wore a fringed suede jacket; his long black hair was pulled back tightly. The jacket was eye-catching, but I was surprised he wasn’t wearing a feathered headdress, or carrying a tomahawk or a peace pipe or any of the other accoutrements Indians usually have in magazine illustrations. The other detectives often criticized Novarius because he preferred to use his fists over reason, but among his many triumphs, he had caught the so-called “Baltimore Strangler,” who had killed seven women between 1882 and 1885. Tamayak had been essential to solving that case, although his account of it, filled with metaphors that only Sioux-speakers could understand, had spoiled the story.

“This is Manuel Araujo, from Seville,” said Baldone, as a short man with a toothy smile came toward us.

“Failed matador and assistant to the detective from Toledo, Fermín Rojo, whose exploits far surpass those of the other eleven detectives,” said Araujo, and he began to recall an episode when the Neapolitan interrupted him.

“Surely the Argentine is familiar with them,” said Baldone. And it was true; I also knew that Araujo exaggerated the detective’s adventures to the point that he had damaged his reputation, casting doubt even on proven facts. The accounts of some of his adventures, which I had read in The Key to Crime , were suspicious to say the least. In The Case of the Golden Hen, Rojo had gone down inside a volcano; in The Ash Circle, he had fought a giant octopus in the Saragossa aquarium. But the most seasoned followers of the Spanish detective said that Rojo allowed his assistant to embellish the tales of his investigations beyond the credible in order to keep the true stories secret.

Sunk into an armchair and looking like he was about to fall asleep was Garganus, the assistant to the Greek detective Madorakis, who stuck out a weary hand to me. I knew that Madorakis had come up against Arzaky on some theoretical aspects of their profession. Craig had told me a bit about their rivalry:

“Every detective is either Platonic or Aristotelian. But we’re not always what we believe ourselves to be. Madorakis thinks he’s Platonic, but he’s Aristotelian; Arzaky thinks he’s Aristotelian, but he’s a hopeless Platonic.”

At the time I hadn’t understood my teacher’s words. I knew that Arzaky’s other rival-his true rival, because his competition with the Greek didn’t go beyond intellectual folly-was Louis Darbon, with whom he vied for control of Paris. Darbon had always considered Arzaky a foreigner who had no right to practice the trade in his city. Arthur Neska, his assistant, was dressed entirely in black and stood in a corner, looking as if he was about to leave. As the days passed I came to understand that he was always like that: in doorways, on staircases, never seated or settled or absorbed in conversation. He was slim and had a youthful air about him, and thin feminine lips that seemed to convey displeasure toward everything and everyone. When I approached him in greeting he didn’t move to shake my hand until the very last second.

Since my childhood, I had followed the adventures of some of these men in The Key to Crime , as well as in other magazines like The Red Mark and Suspicion ; and now I was actually shaking their hands. Even though they were assistants and not detectives, to me they were legendary characters who lived in another world, another time, and yet here we were, in the same room, surrounded by the same cloud of cigarette smoke.